Chapter 1: Oppressive Options (3 AM)
They had thought the events of the last 8 days were brutal...no, this was a volatile nightmare. Alex, Lena, Sam and Lucy had practically destroyed almost all of the Director's lab with frustration and fury crashing through them feeling as if there was no safe harbor to take shelter from the violent storm of unjust brutality. What had happened to those of last week's battle didn't even come close to what their beautiful angel and hero of National City was going through now.
To make matters worse, even with Superman back to normal, his powers were imbalanced in the worst way possible and his sanity was hanging on by a rather thin thread. There was nothing he could help with in the condition he was in and knowing what was going on with his cousin could further cast him in the darkness he'd already been trapped in for too long. Lois, as agonizing of a call it was to make for Lucy, held no answers to aid in the dire situation. She was devastated enough by all of what she'd been told. Her life with her husband was in shambles and to make matters more critical to return Kal-El to his wife was that she too was with child.
Yet another stool was thrown, again by a now sobbing Director whom had somehow not dropped from either pain nor exhaustion. Against Amelia's warnings she had injected herself with the formula meant to produce more rapid healing capabilities. Perhaps that's where the extra strength and energy was coming from. All the other three knew was they were tapped out of energy but still they refused to drop. They needed to solve this problem before Kara got worse.
"Okay." Alex rubbed her temples pacing once more. "We can't use the machines to extract the kryptonite because it could kill the fetus right?" As hard as it was for her to come to terms with her sister bearing an offspring, that unborn inside her could kill Kara. She was against abortion but given what they'd learn neither the mother or baby could survive the pregnancy. She honestly believed, as wrong as it sounded in her head, that Lillian probably could have done the impossible and saved both of them. It sickened her that she even thought like that at a time like this.
"She cannot have that kid Alex. Look...I love Ruby and I handled the pregnancy okay, but this is a matter of life and death. This will kill her." Sam stated as matter of factly as she could.
"They only had her for what...two days? Less? So we have a window to explore the options." Lucy brought to their attention.
"How far along is...wait…..she was taken last week. This happened last week? Alex, there is a morning after pill that can be taken a week after intercourse." She'd never seen Danvers so furious in her life when her head flung up and her eyes filled with absolute rage. "Bad term."
"You think?!" The Director forced that anger down that had bubbled to the surface again. "I'm sorry Sam. I'm just…"
"We are all pissed off to high hell Alex. How do you think I feel watching my best friend and love of my life be put through these ordeals! I hate it! I wanna murder every last one of these people so excruciatingly slow their agony lasts for weeks, months, years! This is killing me! I don't know what is the right thing to do here!" She got up taking her favorite mug from Ireland clenching it and throwing so hard against the wall it shattered completely on impact. "Dammit…" That had been the last of what she had from her first home only to be taken as well. "What the hell do we…" Two people came running in with one in sheer panic the other in a rage Alex had never seen on her ex's face. It didn't help the firearm was clenched tightly in the detective's badly shaking hand.
"I need to kill someone. Give me the card key to the fucking bitch's cell. I will fire every single round I can into her body until she's in pieces by bullet holes.." Hamilton ran over to the Director only for Susan to stand in the doorway clenching the sides to keep from doing the exact same thing Sawyer had threatened. Lena walked over to Alex as did Sam and Lucy. "You are gonna want to do the same. No, you can come up with better ways to kill the evil bitch."
"Wha...oh my….oh...ho..how?" Danvers couldn't breathe. "How?!" She'd forgotten how to. Instantly her body quaked from a shot up anxiety and heart stopping shock. She pushed the paper away clenching to her chest hyperventilating almost instantly. "I gotta...gonna hurl.." Alex stumbled away not even making it to the can at the wall just dropping to the floor to puke right there on the spot.
"How...its...not poss…" Lena felt the rage boil over screaming out running right into the table clenching to it feeling her knees buckle forcing her hands her arms to take all the weight of her trembling body as she too puked but on the table all over everything on it only to slide off falling to the floor.
"Follow me Sawyer." Lucy snarled grabbing the detective by the arm yanking her from the room. Both needed out of there and now. They didn't see Arias go rushing across the room as both her kryptonian fists collided with the wall denting the lead even the Nth metal lining. She howled unleashing her heat vision not even aware her daughter had flew in now forcing her from the wall. She fought the arms around her just breaking completely down to collapse to the floor only to be caught and lowered carefully with Ruby just holding her rocking her.
"Amelia?" Susan finally spoke up seeing the wretched ruined friends and family before her. Hamilton walked over with her hands still shaking. "How accurate is this?"
"Too accurate. Brainy and a couple other technicians finally broke all encrypted files that were on the folders that the Major couldn't even crack. There is a full set of journal entries, reports and video as well as photos They recorded each and every day. Both him and Nia are doing a few different meditative exercises to try to open her clairvoyant abilities."
"So she's…" Vasquez felt like she'd throw up just saying it out loud to all of them but she had to know if it was true.
"She's five months pregnant. They kept detailed test records. Each file is timestamped." Amelia knew how devastatingly putrid and cruel the news was for all of them but they had the right to know what they were up against. Now the real question was...did Kara already know..
They all trudged into another recently interior redone conference room with the Director shutting the door nodding to Ruby. The teen instantly took post at the door arms crossed keeping an eye out for anyone approaching or for sounds of her aunt. Alex forced herself to the head of the table into the chair still shaking from everything they'd learned leading to several of them having to take nausea pills.
"I vote we have bunks built in here, with recharge stations and coffee machines. A water fountain too." Susan muttered sitting down.
"Fuck, just set us up IV stations and inject coffee into me. I'm up for a drip system with electrolytes." Lena added.
"I like the bed idea." Maggie muttered. "Sleep numbers if possible."
"We can go over the budget for that." Alex sighed rubbing her temples with her elbows on the table her head down.
"Fuck that. I'll pay for it." Lena had no issue with that.
"Can I request a raise then?" Sam asked. Her daughter shook her head.
"We can request that at the next budget meeting in May."
"Is this before or after I get a bike.." Ruby spoke up trying to break the mood some. Alex looked up and smiled. "Alex can teach me."
"We will discuss this later. Before...you and Danvers scheme behind my back." Sam attempted to cement in her daughter's stubborn brain.
"I am up for any ideas here." The Director reshuffled the conversation. "Any?" Brainy raised his hand looking at her and for once he didn't look like he was gonna piss himself. "Go ahead...but I warn you."
"If I may." Nia interjected. Alex nodded. "With some meditative trials, we discovered that...with his relaying that with his telling me about.." Danvers rubbed her temples again.
"Nia...don't take after my sister dear. You're rambling."
"I don't mean to. Okay...give me a moment." She shut her eyes focusing how Brainy told her to and once calm she opened her eyes to slip her brown eyes up to Alex's own. "You know this quite well, regarding other world jumping. From what I am to understand is that you fought Nazis?"
"Wait what?" Both Arias looked over confused.
"Nazis? Ohhhhh...when you banged the Captain from that Rider ship." Alex immediately turned a glare her ex's way as Sam looked from Maggie to her. "Oops."
"Who did you sleep with?" Ruby spoke up. "Don't you all give me that look. I'm a teenager not an idiot." Sam was now rubbing her temples. "Mom I haven't had my cherry pop.."
"SOOO…" Maggie threw down the control with her shout. "Back to the problem."
"You were saying Sawyer?" The detective swallowed the lump in her throat knowing she was knee deep for an ass reaming later.
"If you and your sister were on another Earth...is it possible they figured out how to do the same thing?" Alex's eyes widened at her question. "Think with a plausible explanation for a moment.." She stood up to essentially round the table and walk passed everyone. "If you guys could do it, could they? Is it possible, as terrifying as hell as it is to think about, that if that is how the means of time were altered…"
"It's not from jumping Earths." Brainy finally spoke up looking at the ceiling sighing shutting his eyes for a moment. "Imra is gonna have my techno-organic hind end." The Director slammed her fists down on the table hard making everyone jump. His eyes shot open widening when he looked at her.
"Out with it Legion boy or I will ship your micro human ass right back to them." Even Sawyer stopped her roundabout movements now focused on the nervous future affiliate.
"They copied Barry Allen's abilities." Danvers slumped back in her chair with her eyes just as wide. "They infiltrated the database that the late General had access of. With key access to those sealed reports the device in your sister's possession was taken to be copied. Scientific minds, explored faction facilities with employment benefits along with two meta humans from other Earths created a chamber outside of this planet's parameters."
"In layman's terms?" Lena asked growing quite sick of this man's lingo.
"They created a capsule, a chamber. They produced a form of what Kara Zor-El calls the Phantom Zone."
"Fuck." That had Alex's attention right away and she brought her linked hands curled to her face slightly covering her mouth. "Fuck."
"Not helping." Maggie followed up with.
"What is the Phantom Zone?" Sam asked before her daughter could. The Director pulled her hands away looking around at everyone.
"After Krypton exploded, which my sister watched trapped in her pod, the blast and a ship knocked it off course. She was forced into a place called the Phantom Zone. Time is irrelevant and all you have is your last memories, good or bad, to keep you company. Kara was trapped in that dark nightmarish place for over two decades. She has claustrophobia from it. She is terrified to death of that place." Alex looked up at Brainy. "Does she know?"
"No. Her subconscious has several gaps to it. Her ratio of recollection is less than twenty percent. She's unaware of where she was."
"The ones that helped them...from other Earths...where are they?" She wasn't going to let him get away without telling her that.
"Deceased."
"Are you sure?" The man nodded. "Good." His silent hope was that the other question wouldn't come to be. That information he could not give under any circumstance.
"Where is this chamber?" Lena was still trying to wrap her head around that horrid monster gaining that kind of power and technology. It terrified the hell out of her that Lillian had access.
"We have the locations of bases of operation for previous Cadmus and new Cadmus." Susan explained. "We found them once the files were unscrambled."
"Is it possible to reverse prior events with this...capsule?" Lena had to know if there was a chance. Brainy shook his head. Alex however..
"Mon-El's ring! Oh my god!" Danvers stood up after slapping her hand down on the table. "Could that work if we found this chamber?" Brainy cringed.
"The Legion ring? Oh it isn't.."
"NO! NO...YOU don't get to play that card! If that will stop my sister's pain and fix this mess we are sure as hell using it!"
"You witnessed what can occur from previous usage when she altered the fate of Sam." He warned.
"I'm taking that chance. I'm fucking with whatever cosmic shit there is. I want this done. I want my sister okay. We are using the ring if we need to." She was set in her ways especially on that subject.
"One thing at a time." Lucy spoke up. "Susan, how many sites are we looking at exploring to find this thing."
"Over two dozen." Vasquez answered.
"Fine. Divide and conquer Director?" Lane assumed with Danvers nodding. "Okay, let's split up then." They immediately all got up to head out, review the locations and assign agents to the proper sites. Both Brainy and Nia stayed behind knowing neither could engage in this mission. With the briefest touch their conversation was met. She looked up at him. I know you wish to keep silent I know you wish not to interfere with the balance of this Brainy but...this isn't an exact thing. Even you said events of the timeline can change if certain events do not happen.
"They will happen." He whispered carefully waiting until all other colleagues were absent.
"We can't not help." Nia spoke with more conviction. I cannot stand back and not help. I know what this will affect. I won't do this. I'm sorry.. Dreamer broke the contact and ran off towards the others to join in on the search. She had to. She wanted to and the Director smiled silently thanking her with a look when she too suited up in their armored attire to head out. Nia along with the rest of them knew time was of the essence and they had absolutely none to lose. They had to right the events of now before they could become a fatal tomorrow...